


Muses of the Lower World

by LyricaXXX (LyricaB)



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: AU, Community: lewis_challenge, Lewis Frightfest 2015, M/M, Other: See Story Notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-28 17:09:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5098589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyricaB/pseuds/LyricaXXX
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><br/>And because James’s thoughts have betrayed him, the incubus takes the shape of Robbie Lewis.<br/><br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Muses of the Lower World

**Author's Note:**

>   
>   
> **Warning:** _See End Notes for a warning that is also a spoiler._  
>     
>  **A/N:** _To anyone who’s read my story notes before, this will be a familiar refrain... I started writing a story for {insert Challenge/Exchange/Bang name}, and fought it for {insert amount of time spent beating my head against the keyboard}, only to have my contrary muse shove a different story into my head at the last minute. So...I have 25000+ words of Robbie/James vampire angst, written for the Fright Fest 2015, languishing unfinished on my hard drive. And I offer this smut in its place._
> 
>    
>  _Thanks beyond measure to my two wonderful betas, the fast and brilliant[Owlbsurfinbird](http://archiveofourown.org/users/owlbsurfinbird) and [Dryad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Dryad), who found my typos, sorted my word salad, and untangled my phantom limbs. This story is so much stronger and clearer for their help. I owe you!_
> 
>  
> 
> _Since I am constitutionally unable to leave something alone, even after it's been beautifully beta-read, mistakes are my fault, not misses by my lovely betas._  
> 

  
  


* * *

  


> “Once he hears to his heart's content, sails on, a wiser man.”  
>                                                              ~ _The Odyssesy_ , Homer

  
  


A sound that’s almost music calls to James through his wine-soaked slumber.

It’s a repetitive sweep softer than brushes on a drumhead. A sound played on flesh. A thumb, stroking softly, back and forth, across the curve of his cheekbone. The caress is so light, so soft, it might be made of smoke, yet substantial, the warmth of skin enticing him with an undeniable melody. 

He opens his eyes slowly, loathe to disturb the enthralling touch but drawn awake by curiosity, by shivers of desire that dance over his skin like the trill of birdsong. 

The room is a contrast of shadow and pale silver; darkness relieved, just barely, by the crescent moon shining through thin curtains. In the dim light, James can sense more than see the shape hovering near him. And even after he turns, shifting so that moonlight plays over it, he can’t _See_ the aura of the creature, only the wavering hint of square shoulders. 

An incubus, then, he guesses, based on the indistinct yet masculine silhouette and the undeniable, sensual, toe-curling effect of its touch. 

His heartbeat shifts from somnolent to tripping, but he’s not frightened. He knows he should be. He’s seen incubus and succubus addicts—hollow-eyed and stumbling, used up, drained of energy and purpose. He’s sat across from them in the nick’s interview room on more than one occasion and wondered how anyone could be seduced into falling so far. 

And now he knows. Because there’s no room for fear in the rush of desire swamping his thoughts. No way to control the response of his body, breath quickening, skin prickling and flushing, blood pooling, thick and hot, into his groin. 

He reaches out, thinking to touch the crackling aura the way he can touch Lizzie’s sprite-ly sparkle or Peterson’s ever-changing shape-shifter glow. Even Laura, who’s some type of fae that James can’t identify, gives off a faint silvery shadow that he can almost feel. And Innocent...he’s still not quite sure he believes it, though it makes complete sense...the sharp, strong feel of her werewolf aura enters a room before she does. 

But the incubus is a null, much the same as Robbie, who gives off no aura that’s discernable to James. The airy curve of its shoulder and arm is as unshadowed and plain as a black line drawn with ink. But then...an incubus is an elemental being of night, not a supernatural being encased in human flesh. So maybe it’s not odd that James can’t See it’s aura. Maybe, like a vampire, it can’t be Seen in light. Maybe it has no aura, no shadow and light hovering around its shape. 

Or maybe James just isn’t learned enough to sense it yet. He’s only recently come into his gift. His latent ability as a Seer of aura and shadow awakened, unexpected and a bit unwelcome, much later in life than gifts do for most, and he’s still feeling his way through it. Learning to recognize shapes and shadows and nuances. Still learning the depths of his ability. 

His teachers assure him that everyone has an aura. That his awareness of Robbie, and the recognition of the creatures whose auras elude him, will come in time. But it seems odd to him that he can See the innermost secret of a complete stranger, yet discern nothing of the man who means so much to him. 

Not that it really matters. Robbie may be without the telltale aura that most people reveal, unwittingly, to James’s Sight—he may be bereft of the shadowy, flowing shape that tells the truth of his inner self—but James doesn’t need an aura to know Robbie’s inner self. Robbie is Robbie, the calm, grounded, harmonious centre around which James rotates. The tune he can hear, but never sing. 

Too late, James realizes the direction his thoughts have taken. Too late, he understands why he’s thinking of Robbie with longing and desire, instead of warding himself against the creature hovering nearby. Too late, he feels his breath coming a bit faster and his stomach clenching with anticipation. 

The incubus has directed his mind; has slipped, unbidden, into his dreams; is already feeding off his fantasies; unlocking his darkest, sweetest desires. 

In his half dreaming state, the creature floating above him had seemed ethereal, made of smoke and shadow. But as James jolts back to attention, trying to shut it out of his thoughts, the creature shifts into something real and solid. Becomes a man who smells of wine and soap, of rich sea air and sunshine. 

Because James’s thoughts have betrayed him, the incubus takes the shape of Robbie Lewis. 

Here, in the dark, with only ghostly moonlight shining through the window, the incubus is Robbie as James has only ever dared dream of him in his most secret fantasies. Robbie, naked and warm. Aroused. Heavy cock pressing into James’s thigh as he leans close, whispering, “James. My lovely James,” in a low, seductive tone. 

Heat flashes through James as if he’s been blasted with sunlight, and he moans. Because he knows he’s lost before the battle has even begun. 

That creature of smoke, perhaps, he could have resisted. But he can’t resist this fantasy, warm and solid and breathing, drawn straight from his deepest yearning. Manifested from the secret he has kept hidden, for years, in the depths of his soul. 

Robbie hums with approval, an arcane, sensual sound that warms James’s muscles and sets his nerves singing, as he feels James’s jolt of arousal. 

James touches, with the barest stroke of his fingertips, the curve of Robbie’s shoulder, the sweep of bicep down into the tender flesh at the bend of his arm. Just... Just this once. To know, just for a moment, how Robbie feels, even though James knows it’s not real. He whispers, “No. I shouldn’t.” But it’s only token protest. 

Robbie’s fingers ghost across James’s jaw, slip inside the collar of his pyjamas, pushing the fabric aside so he can press his lips to the juncture of neck and shoulder. Trail a line of kisses across the sharp line of James’s clavicle. In the hollow at the base of James’s throat, Robbie murmurs, “Yes...” 

The word flows like molten lava through James’s veins. And because he can’t resist this, doesn’t want to resist this—Robbie’s touch and Robbie’s heat and Robbie’s beguiling passion—James answers, breath coming quick and shallow, “Yes.” He tilts his head back, arching his neck, bowing his spine. His hands fall, open and exposed, onto the bed. 

Robbie’s echoes the ‘Yes’, and his hands, languid and warm, move down James’s chest, undoing buttons, fingers trailing over bared skin as he slides James’s loose pyjama pants down his hips and away. Exposing James to the cool night air and sizzling, captivating caresses. 

Robbie’s tongue follows his fingers, leaving a trail of cool wetness over James’s skin. Teases James’s nipples, leaving them peaked and wet. His thumbs graze James’s hipbones, are replaced by tongue tip inscribing soft circles around the sharp edges. 

James urges Robbie on with his voice, with a melody of moans and sighs, his body an odd contrast of quivering excitement and pliant offering. Wanting...all the things he’s barely allowed himself to imagine Robbie doing to him. The touch of hands and tongue, the weight of Robbie’s body, pressing him into the mattress, the entrancing heat of Robbie’s arousal. 

Robbie’s teeth graze the sharpness of his hipbone. Nip at the artery pulsing in his inner thigh. His tongue whispers over James’s skin, across his thigh, into the hollow of his hip, his navel. Up to his nipples again and back down to the same place in the bend of his arm that James stroked on Robbie. Robbie nips, sucks hard enough to leave a mark, then soothes it with his thumb. Then he wanders on, tasting James at waist, hip, thigh. 

Kissing, caressing, licking everywhere but where James wants him. James tilts his hips, entreaty for that questing tongue to find his cock, hard and hot against his belly. He wants, he needs, the touch of Robbie’s mouth. Craves it. 

He threads his fingers through Robbie’s hair, tries to direct him. 

Robbie laughs, throaty and approving. He allows James to guide him, but still he teases. Ignoring what’s offered. Building James’s anticipation. Tongue and teeth and that stroke of thumb, sliding over James’s ribs, circling his navel. Up to his nipples. Up high to the pulse that’s thundering under his ear, down to his thighs. 

Robbie’s languid kisses, the feathery light touch of his tongue, leave James breathless and begging. And just when he’s sure that he’s going to curse with frustration, Robbie slides down, breathes across his quivering belly, and draws James’s cock into his mouth. Sucks at him, licks, tugs, sips at James as if he’ll drink him down. 

Fireworks go off in James’s mind, in his gut. Spangles like light dancing on water shoot through his nerves, and he arches, crying out.

Then Robbie slips away. Still teasing, caressing. Tormenting. He presses his lips to the centre of James’s chest and breathes a song of enchantment into James’s heart. 

And when James’s heart is tuned to the poem that’s vibrating through muscle and bone, Robbie slips away again, back to suckle him. To hum along the length of his cock, swallow him down, moaning around him as if he tastes of golden honey. 

James whimpers. The contrast between soft and loving, raw and lewd, all delivered with equal expertise and languor, is mesmerizing. It’s as if Robbie’s reading his thoughts and taunting James with how well he knows him. Showing James that no one else will ever be able to wind him higher and tighter. 

When James starts to thrust, grunting and gasping, into the heat of Robbie’s mouth, Robbie pulls away yet again. Rises up and settles down, pressing the length of his body onto James. Shoulders, hips, thighs, matching up to his. Sandwiching their erections between their bellies. Pressing James into the mattress. Even the soles of his feet press against the tops of James’s feet. 

The contact is a shock of warmth and weight, and the thrill of it ripples up his spine. “Incubare,” he murmurs, running his hands the length of Robbie’s back. Down to the swell of his buttocks, back up to clasp his shoulders. Welcoming Robbie’s weight. Glorying in it. Struggling, wicked token pretence, just so Robbie will press into him harder. 

Robbie lifts back enough to tilt his head. Even in the dimness of the room, his blue eyes sparkle with amusement and question. 

“Latin,” James manages to rasp out. “The root from which ‘incubus’ comes. _Incubo_ , ‘nightmare, one who lies down on the sleeper’, and _incubare_ , ‘to lie upon’.” His breath catches in his throat and he dares not complete the thought aloud. Is Robbie his incubare? His nightmare? 

Robbie smiles, knowing and fond, and stretches James’s arms high above his head. Twining their fingers so that James’s arms, too, are weighed down. He presses his mouth to James’s mouth, kisses him so sweetly. Lips caressing his. Soft and tasting of salt. Of James’s arousal. 

James feels like he’s melting. Dissolving with the warmth and gentleness of it. With the contrast of how lightly Robbie’s mouth is moving compared to his weight, to the heat of his body. 

James relaxes into his captivity. Content to lie there, crushed, kissed, loved. 

But his lungs protest, and he has to breathe. He gasps for breath, and Robbie’s tongue slips between his lips. 

Robbie shifts, body sliding on James’s, knees sliding down to the mattress, imprisoning James between them. Robbie’s cock, hard, hot as the noon sun, slots in against James’s, and he thrusts, the slick tip of his cock sliding along James’s cock, catching on his navel.

And the sweetness is gone, replaced with rut. With rapacious desire, raring up, quick and blustery as a summer storm. James moans and his fingers dig into Robbie’s back. He pushes at the cage of Robbie’s strong legs, wanting to shove his own knees wider, to offer himself in blatant invitation. 

Robbie lifts up, rolls James onto his belly as easily as if he weighs nothing. Supernatural strength taking James, for a moment, out of the dream. Out of the fantasy. 

Incubus. Nightmare. Incubare. Hovering above him. Reading his mind. Sucking at his body and his soul. Stealing his secrets, feeding his desire only to feed off it in turn. 

Robbie strips the twisted pyjama shirt off James’s shoulders and yanks it down his arms. Tosses it away. The knees that had held James so sweetly captive only moments before shove his legs apart roughly. Fingers slide down his back. Stroke the cheeks of his arse. Caress, squeeze, slip down between his legs. 

James resists, wanting the roughness, wanting to be taken, but needing to regain the fantasy. Unable to give himself without it. He begs, “Robbie...” 

The incubus stills, sliding without hesitation back into softness. His lips caress James’s shoulder. His thumb traces its magical symbols on James’s cheekbone. “James...” His voice brands the nape of James’s neck. 

It’s almost enough, that beloved voice. Almost enough to pull James back into the dream. 

But as lips move slowly down his spine, leaving fire and a trail of inaudible, singsong whispers in their wake, James realizes it doesn’t matter. He’s too far gone, now, to stop. Too deep into the pleasure to care what holds him, what’s loving him. Feeding off him. 

James fills his fists with folds of sheet and lifts himself in entreaty. Understanding at last, those people who cast spells and wear cloying, sickly sweet perfume and sleep within circles of strange symbols or sparking crystals to lure an incubus or succubus to their bed. To feel this pleasure... To experience, even once, this fantasy... It’s worth the energy, the life force, the piece of himself that he’s giving up. 

The thing touches him, spreading him open. Strokes his centre with its tongue, with slick fingers. It reaches underneath him to tweak his nipples and fondle his cock. 

Pleasure arcs out like sparks exploding from a fire. It makes James lift his hips higher off the mattress and beg, wordlessly, with his body. He whispers, “Please,” into his pillow. 

And Robbie laughs softly, pleased with his ‘please’, and pushes into him. 

He’s slick and open, but it’s been a long time, and Robbie’s cock burns going in. It hurts. And it feels so good. So good, and he moans and pushes back to meet Robbie’s thrusts. Arches up, loving the grip of Robbie’s fingers digging into his hips. The stretch and burn of being filled. Emptied. Filled again. Ecstasy with the dark, slow, tantalizing rhythm of a measured drumbeat. 

Robbie croons his name, voice low and sensual, thick with pleasure, as James has never thought to hear it. Robbie shifts, angling down, and the burn becomes flame. Pleasure like the scrape of a match on sandpaper. It bows James’s spine, ripples across his shoulders. His whole body flushes with it. 

“Harder,” James gasps. “Faster.” James braces and reaches for his cock. He’s ready. So ready. It won’t take much to push himself over the edge. He wants to make it last, but it’s too good and he’s too greedy. 

Robbie holds him to stillness, covers James’s hand with his own, fingers slipping between James’s fingers so that the rough pads of his fingers slide along the underside of James’s shaft, catch and stroke, once. Twice. 

And then Robbie pulls James’s hand away. Presses his palm to the mattress. On both sides, Robbie’s grip, preternaturally strong, encircles his wrists, hold his hands pinned flat. “No,” he rasps in James’s ear, “Me. Only me.” 

James moans in frustration, shudders with excitement. He’s never done that. Never been with anyone who could take him that far. Ride him that well. 

But Robbie, this Robbie, knows. Knows what he’s feeling. Knows him inside and out. 

He shoves James flat on the mattress, pressing him down. Crushing him. Holding James down with his weight and his voice as he fucks him. Faster now. Harder, the way James craved. And every thrust, every withdrawal, glides and rides and across that sweet spot inside so that James feels as if his cock is being stroked from within. 

Every whisper of his name, every murmur of how good he is, how tight and hot and precious he is, takes him higher. Higher. Until he’s gasping, frozen in place, trying not to even shiver, so that he doesn’t disturb, not one stroke, not one thrust, of what Robbie’s doing to him. 

Building. Climbing. Orgasm there, just there. Within reach and unreachable. It’s fire and bliss. It’s unbearable and he prays that it will never end. He wants Robbie to hold him forever, fuck him forever. Feed off his energy until he’s a burned out husk. 

But he can’t maintain that kind of outer stillness when his mind is on fire and his insides are burning up. When his muscles are screaming with the need to move, and his cock is begging to be touched. 

He shifts, thrusting, point and counterpoint to Robbie’s thrusts, sliding his cock against the sheet. And when it’s not enough, pushes back, up, trying to raise up so that he can brace on only one hand. Touch himself. “God, Robbie, let me.” 

But Robbie denies him. Changes his rhythm, the way he’s throwing his weight as he thrusts. He laughs, softly, evilly, against James’s ear. Hums, “No.” And he nips James’s earlobe with sharp teeth. “You have me. You don’t need it.” 

Robbie moves over him, in him. Reverting to that unrelenting, unhurried pace. Thrusting. Thrusting. Holding him down. Owning him. Until at last, James gives up. He sinks down, unresisting, under Robbie’s weight. Quivering, gasping, needing... 

And that’s when Robbie rears back, raising up off him, knees sliding between his thighs as he urges James to his knees. But still, Robbie refuses to let him touch himself. He holds James’s hands pinned to the mattress once again as he curves over him. No longer pinning James, but still incubare. Still lying upon him. 

Robbie’s thumbs strokes James’s wrists, his pulse, the caress more sensual, more arousing than any touch on his cock would be. 

James pants with the pleasure of it, groans with the sweet frustration of being kept, so long, on the edge. Shivers as fire chases up and down his spine. 

“Come for me,” Robbie whispers, breath tickling his ear. “Come for me now, my sweet James.” 

And James soars off the cliff. Lifts, buffeted like an eagle caught in a clear, high, hot updraft. And drops, screaming, into orgasm. The pleasure rolls over him, twists and turns. Batters him. Coils around and around his body. 

His eyes snap open and he sees his reflection in the dressing table mirror. A pale shadow captured in silver. Coming. Coming. Back bowed. Face twisted. Cock jerking up towards his belly, dropping only to rise back up, with the power of his orgasm. Spurting. Untouched. “Oh, god,” he moans and the idea of it, the pleasure, takes him higher. 

And just when he thinks it’ll end, when he thinks he can breathe again, Robbie reaches for him. Wraps fingers, strong and hot, around his cock. Works him with sure, knowing strokes. Robbie’s thumb slips across the crown of James’s cock, caressing, rough. 

And James shudders through another swell of pleasure. Another spasm of heat and bliss. Another contraction of muscles so strong it feels like his spine will crack. 

Robbie gasps and loses the measured rhythm of his thrusts. He straightens, fingers biting into James’s hips. And Robbie comes undone above him. Groaning, “James. Oh, my James.” 

James shivers, tiny ripples of sensation chasing through his body, across his skin, every time Robbie says his name. Every time Robbie’s words claim him. Every time he feels the heat of Robbie surge within him. 

But, finally, there’s no strength left in his muscles. No more pleasure to be wrung from his fried nerves, and James collapses onto the mattress. 

Robbie falls with him. Lies sprawled, sweaty and gasping, across his back. Robbie’s still in him. Throbbing, but moving almost not at all now. Just holding him, filling him. Body covering his as he presses kisses to James’s shoulders and the back of his neck. 

James whispers softly, “Robbie.” He knows he shouldn’t name the incubus now. He shouldn’t give it an identity, especially not this identity, outside the fantasy. It makes it too real, and it might tie the demon to him in that way of supernatural things given reality. Given form and recognition. 

But he can’t help it. Just this once, this one time. He wants just this last sweet, stolen moment in the darkness. It could almost be a dream. Maybe it is a dream. “Robbie,” he says again, all that he feels, all that he can never show, never have, welling up in his voice. 

And the incubus whispers, “James,” in return. “My James.” His thumb, slick with semen, strokes across James’s cheekbone as he rests his face on James’s shoulder. “Sleep well.” 

James shivers and slides back into a dream he’s not sure he ever left. 

 

*****

 

James wakes, disoriented, drooling into a pillow. But not _his_ pillow. 

He’s not in his own bed, and it takes him a moment to remember that he’s in Robbie and Laura’s spare room. It had been a late night, celebrating a case solved in time for them to watch two of his and Robbie’s favourite football teams go head to head. There had been, maybe, a bit too much wine. And at the end of the night, Laura had taken his car keys, handed him a pair of pyjamas worn soft and thin and smelling of Robbie despite being clean, and pointed imperiously. And James had gone without protest, smiling and tired, grateful not to have to call a taxi and then try to stay awake for the trip home. 

As he rolls over, the sheet goes with him, and his skin protests. His belly and a spot on his arm and a long line down one thigh are all stuck to the fabric. And he remembers, with a jolt, his dream of the night before. An incubus with Robbie’s blue eyes and a voice that made his skin tingle at its touch. He remembers falling asleep to a dream of Robbie, warm and relaxed, resting against his back. 

Except...it wasn’t a dream, was it? Because he’s naked. And his body’s aching and tender from being used. And he smells of an unlovely mix of sweat and semen. And he’s itchy and stuck to the sheet because he was so exhausted and stupefied that he hadn’t bothered to clean up after. 

He blinks against the sunlight pouring through the Laura’s delicate, flowery curtains. Thinks of her saying firmly, ‘Robbie can make the rest of the house as manly and dark as he wants, but one room is going to look like a woman who doesn’t dissect corpses for a living lives in it.’ 

James half expects that a dark, shadowy shape, a seething shadow in Laura’s bright, feminine guest room, will still be beside him. But he’s alone. Relief and disappointment roll through him in equal measure. He’s relieved the creature is gone, banished by daylight back to its world of night and dreams, and disappointed that the creature is gone, the stolen fantasy of Robbie gone with it. 

The disappointment dissolves in a flood of embarrassment and shame. At what he did. At what he revealed.

His gut roils queasily in anticipation of what will have to be done next. Because that thing was real. And now he has to tell Robbie and Laura what he’s discovered lurking in the shadows of their home. And hope that they won’t guess the whole of it. 

On cue, Laura taps lightly on the door and calls, “James! Breakfast!” 

He flushes at just the sound of her voice and sits on the edge of the bed, scrubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands. 

He stares at his reflection in the mirror of the antique dressing table that he helped Laura move into the room. That day, he’d been flushed with summer heat and wiping sweat from his eyes. This morning, he looks dehydrated and sickly pale with crescents the colour of bruises under his eyes. 

He remembers her laughter as he grumbled and groaned about having to move the heavy table after they’d attached the even heavier mirror, shifting it until she liked the placement. He remembers his reflection in the mirror last night. Robbie’s reflection, biceps and thighs straining, head thrown back in ecstasy, moving against James, thrusting... James’s stomach flutters. Would Laura laugh now, if she knew what James has seen in that mirror? 

He scrubs at his eyes again and reminds himself that it was only a fantasy. No different, really, than if he’d pleasured himself in the middle of the night, forbidden images singing in his mind. No harm done, except maybe to his own sense of propriety. 

And no one will ever know. It’s not like the incubus will tell. Unless it visits Robbie, too, in the dark of night and sings in his ear. Lascivious tales of what it did, in the guise of Robbie, to James. 

James shudders with jealousy and horror to think of that thing touching Robbie. Shivers at the thought, the possibility, that Robbie, too, might have fantasies dark and deep enough to attract an incubus. Might have a desire for an incubus to take on a familiar shape, to use him... James’s body, despite feeling drained and replete, stirs at the image that forms in his mind. 

He shakes his head, like a dog coming in from the rain, as if he can shake his brain free of all those thoughts. It makes his head throb, and he rolls to his feet and moves about in as much of a morning routine as he can manage in a home that’s not his own. 

He strips the bed and finds the borrowed pyjamas (remembering the Robbie doppelganger flinging each piece aside as it was stripped off him) and bundles them into the hamper. He has a razor and toothbrush in the guest bathroom, and his own soap and shampoo in the shower. But only yesterday’s clothing to put on. Laura and Robbie both keep reminding him to bring over a couple of changes of clothing for situations just like this one. But he doubts now he’ll ever do it. He doubts he’ll ever have the nerve to stay over again. 

The last thing he does before he ventures out is remake the bed with clean linen, shamefaced as he smoothes and tucks Laura’s thick white comforter into place. How could he have been taken in by that thing? How could he have allowed so much of himself to be exposed? 

When he comes out into the living room, Laura’s out of sight, in the hallway, shuffling papers, humming in that distracted, unaware way she does in the morning. As if she’s greeting the sun under her breath and sorting out the day to come. 

Robbie’s in the kitchen, at the stove, stirring and salting a pan of scrambled eggs. He looks back at James with a sunny, welcoming smile. “Ready for breakfast? Or is your stomach too thick this morning for food?” Robbie looks fresh and scrubbed clean and not at all like his head is throbbing with a hangover. 

James flushes. It would have been better if Robbie had been, somehow, suspicious and knowing. Or grumpy and as hung-over as James is. Either would have been easier to face than this guileless cheer. 

They’ve laid a place for him, complete with a bottle of paracetamol and a glass of water, at the table, and James drags the chair out and sits. He’s not ready to meet Robbie’s gaze, so he busies himself with the bottle of pills. With carefully taking two out and swallowing them. He’s parched, and he gulps the water down and wishes he had more. 

Robbie ladles scrambled eggs onto his plate. Adds toast and bacon. Pours orange juice into James’s empty water glass. 

It all looks good, a surprise considering Robbie’s level of cooking skill, and it smells not quite so bad as James thought it would. His stomach rumbles. 

Robbie takes the chair beside him, pulling the coffeepot close. He peers at James. “You look terrible, man. Didn’t you sleep well?” 

The words are so nearly what the incubus said to James that he starts. Meets Robbie’s gaze suspiciously, but of course, it’s only James’s own guilty conscience making him wary. 

Robbie smiles at him, easily, his blue eyes crackling and wicked with laughter. 

Laura breezes into the room, carrying a stack of files. She plops them down on the worktop and crosses to the sink. Picks up a glass from the drying rack and holds it under the tap. 

“James didn’t sleep well last night,” Robbie tells her. 

She turns back, glass full, to scrutinize James. What she sees makes her lift her eyebrows and smile at Robbie as if they’re sharing a secret. “He looks terrible,” she says cheerfully. “Obviously too much football.” 

Robbie laughs deep in his throat. 

“You don’t have to be so damned cheerful about it,” James grumbles, beginning to relax. 

They’re acting so normal. Making it so easy for him to act normal. And that’s all he has to do, just get past this one morning. Out the door into the day, where maybe he can regain his equilibrium. Put everything, his fantasies and his memories of the night before, back in the shadows where they belong. 

“Bad dreams?” Laura asks him, impish. “Or good ones?” 

She winks at Robbie, and he laughs again, knowing. Arch. 

James blanches, suddenly flooded with the certainty, the fear, that they know. Laura’s some kind of fae, and the abilities of the fae are varied and wide-ranging. Maybe she sensed it. Maybe she heard him, moaning Robbie’s name into the pillow. Maybe she just... _Knows_ , the way he Sees. 

His head snaps up, and he searches her aura. It’s all silvery in the morning light, and he can See the outline of it more clearly than ever before, but it still has the shape of her human form. He isn’t sure what creature she is. What kind of fae. He’s never Seen anything like her. 

He could just ask. It’s Laura, after all. But she’s never volunteered any information about what she is and to ask seems so...personal. So nosy on his part. Especially since Robbie and Laura are rare in that they’ve always given him space about his supernatural ability.

Seeing is rare and his gift draws way more attention his way than is comfortable. To him, it seems a bit lame. He’d have much rather be mysterious like Laura or have a practical gift like Peterson, who can shape-shift into something doe-eyed and swift or something heavy and lethal, in the time it would take to snap a finger. 

But no one else agrees with James, neither humans nor supernaturals. The supers either violently want nothing to do with him because they want to remain in shadow, or they’re drawn to him, weary of being Unseen, to bask in the light of his recognition. His co-workers, even the ones who previously gave him a wide berth, are equally drawn to him. Eager to make use of his ability to See what’s latent, or unrealized, or deliberately hidden in others. 

Only Robbie and Laura treat him as they did before his Seeing manifested, and, most of the time, Lizzie, though her innate curiosity sometimes gets the better of her. Robbie and Laura listen with interest and respect to anything he tells them about Seeing, or what he’s Seen, but they don’t pry. 

And he hopes they won’t pry now, with what he has to tell them. “I, uh...” He clears his throat. “There was an incubus here last night.” 

“What!” Laura almost spits water across the worktop. 

Robbie wheels on him, his face so surprised, it’s comical. 

And then Robbie recovers, and he and Laura look at each other in that way that couples do, as if each understands, without words, what the other is thinking. Laura bites her lip as if she’s trying not to laugh outright, and Robbie smiles, his tongue snaking out to wet his upper lip. 

There’s something about it that’s...discomfiting. It feels like...they _know_ , but instead of feeling angered or betrayed, they’re filled with dark, smouldering amusement. In anyone else, James would call it...sinister. It’s certainly not the reaction he expected. 

“There’s no incubus here, James,” Robbie says, turning back to him, his expression piercing. 

“There is.” James flushes, knowing that what comes next is that they’ll realize how he knows. Maybe they already have. All that makes him able to continue is that they’ll never know the guise in which the incubus appeared to him. “I— It—” He clears his throat, toys with his fork, unable to look at either one of them. 

Laura sighs. “Robbie, for god’s sake, put him out of his misery.” 

Robbie pushes his chair back abruptly, stands, and circles behind James. “It’s all right, lad,” he says, hand coming down to rest on James’s shoulder. It’s Robbie’s hand, but heavy. Too heavy. Like the weight of the incubus, pressing him into the mattress. 

Robbie’s fingers trail up his neck, and his thumb brushes over the jut of James’s cheekbone, circling gently across the flesh as if it’s inscribing some esoteric symbol on his flesh. 

James jolts with instant recognition. He knows this touch. The way it makes his bones and his skin sing. The way it makes his cock rise, filling slowly with thick, sluggish blood. It’s the touch that called to him in the middle of the night. The touch that woke him, roused him, claimed him. The touch of the incubus. 

And with a flash of insight, James understands. Understands why he’s never been able to See a shadow shape around Robbie. _Robbie’s_ the incubus. That’s why there’s no luminosity to his aura. It wasn’t an incubus that came into his room and took on the shape of Robbie, James’s dearest fantasy. It was an incubus taking on its own shape. 

Breath surges into James’s lungs, and he stiffens. Not just his cock, but his shoulders and his spine. His fingers clench, nails scraping across his palms. Even his toes curl inside his shoes. He flinches back, jerking his face away from Robbie’s fingers. 

He closes his eyes, embarrassment and denial scratching inside his skull. He’s doesn’t want to _See_ this. Doesn’t want to know that Robbie’s a creature of shadow and lust. That Robbie would invade his thoughts, steal his fantasies. _Feed_ off him. 

Robbie’s hand returns, cups the side of his head, turning and tilting James’s face up. “James...look at me.” 

James doesn’t want to, but he’s as helpless to resist the command in Robbie’s voice as he was to resist his own desires last night. He opens his eyes. 

Robbie’s smiling down at him. Still and calm with that easy-going, controlled affability. As if the yearning and passion that happened between them last night was as natural as rain. As if he hasn’t sipped from James’s soul, invaded his innermost thoughts. 

And James realizes how wrong he is. 

Robbie’s not an incubus. Robbie could never be an incubus. Never be a thing of shadow and smoke and dark night. He’s something else. Something...golden and singing. The shadow that shimmers around him, shadow that’s not a shadow, is like Lizzie’s sparkle. Except that this is a dazzling field of gold interwoven with all the colours of the rainbow. And like Laura’s, it follows the outline of Robbie’s human shape. 

Awestruck, James reaches out to touch it, brushing his fingers through the glimmer along Robbie’s arm. He doesn’t feel the shifting aura so much as hear it on his skin. A siren’s song playing on his flesh. 

Robbie is music, bright and clear. A thing alluring and undeniable, as dangerous as a storm. 

And it should frighten James. It should scare the wits out of him. But it doesn’t, any more than the idea of the incubus did last night. Because it’s Robbie. 

“You were right,” Laura says, looking at Robbie with delight. “Now he Sees you.” She smiles at James as if he’s done something wonderful. 

And Robbie nods, squeezing James’s shoulder with approbation. “Yeah,” Robbie agrees. “It worked. He’s mine now.” His voice is pleased, clear as the thrum of a guitar perfectly tuned. But there’s something dark in it, too. Something...greedy and acquisitive. 

Laura laughs. And there’s that same avid hunger underneath the silver of her voice. “But you’ll share. Right?” 

James looks at her and realizes that he was wrong about Laura, too. She’s not fae. She’s like Robbie, but silver and crystal to his gold. Not sparkling fae, but singing siren. 

Robbie rumbles with amusement, echo of that deep, dark, lewd laughter from last night. “Yeah,” he assures her. “Yeah.” His fingers trail along the edge of James’s collar. Dip underneath to stroke James’s bare skin. “Now we live on.” 

James shivers and steels himself not to lean into that enthralling touch, but he can’t help lifting his chin, granting access to his throat. 

He knows the part of siren mythology to which Robbie is referring. It’s from _The Fabulae_ , he thinks. Hyginus. The part about how sirens would live only until someone who heard their singing passed them by. And he quotes from _The Odyssey_ , “Once he hears to his heart's content, sails on, a wiser man.” 

But it’s too late for anyone to tie James to the mast. It’s too late for him to pass on. He’s ensnared. Ensorcelled. The siren’s call of Robbie’s touch makes James’s bones vibrate. Makes his skin heat and his nerves trill. 

Robbie’s fingers stroke and play over James’s throat, tease across his carotid. Then Robbie’s hand comes to rest cupping the back of James’s neck. His thumb strokes gently, slowly, across James’s nape. Robbie smiles, content, pleased, his blue eyes predatory and dark with the promise of things to come. “Yes,” Robbie murmurs, and even just the one word, is a ballad, an aria.

James looks up into the song that is Robbie Lewis, and he whispers, “Yes.”

###  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

>  **Warning:** There are elements in this story that might be considered Dub Con by some. I don’t consider them that, because I know exactly what’s going on in James’s head (for these ~6500 words, at least *g*), but...just in case... You’ve been warned!


End file.
